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Shawnee State University’s Sociology Club has been awarded the Phil Wolfe fund

Shawnee State University’s Sociology Club is pleased to announce they have been awarded
the Phil Wolfe fund from the Scioto Foundation for the “Free Little Library Project.”

The Free Little Library Project is a free “take a book, return a book” exchange. The
most common versions of these little libraries come in the form of a small wooden
box that can be filled with books from anyone and can be borrowed by anyone. The idea
is to encourage reading and curiosity among the community while boosting a sense of
community and belonging.

The SSU Sociology Club has placed six Free Little Libraries throughout the Portsmouth
area, and hopes their project truly has encouraged reading and is helping to further
establish the identity of Portsmouth as a college town. The Free Little Libraries
not only increase the availability of books to individuals, they help demonstrate
how college students can contribute to the growth of the city while encouraging SSU
students to participate in community development.

The next goal of the Sociology club is to register the Free Little Libraries with
the nonprofit organization “Little Free Library” and to install a sign on each of
the existing libraries. Registering the existing libraries will allow the Portsmouth
community to see how many more libraries exist in the area compared to those in larger
cities.

To establish the goal of registering their libraries, three members of the Sociology
Club and Sociology majors at SSU, Devon Cossman, Paul Harris and Tyra Tate, drafted,
applied and were awarded the grant from the Scioto Foundation.

“I encourage my students to write grants for two reasons; I think it helps them learn
about the grant writing process and that this would add to the other contributions
the Sociology Club has made to the city,” said Sean Dunne, Associate Professor of
Social Sciences.